by Ian Irvine
'I don't sense the Art,' said Flydd, puzzled. 'What are the scrutators up to?'
The battle had not resumed. The air-floaters pulled back into that perfect formation, now hanging motionless above the battlefield, their rotors turning just enough to counteract the gentle motion of the air.
'I wonder . . .?' said Flydd. 'Who on the Council has the boldness for this kind of venture, and the foresight to know that it would be needed?'
Irisis had a fair idea, but she would just wait and see. From the topmost middle air-floater, rods extended to either side, all the way to the neighbouring machines, which latched on. A roll of shimmering fabric fell, was caught as it passed in front of the middle row of machines, and again at the bottom.
'What on earth are they doing?' said Tham.
No one answered. The air-floaters moved ever so slightly this way and that, bending the rods and pulling the fabric into a gentle concavity. It took a long time, for the slightest change in the breeze tended to drift the machines apart, and much manoeuvring was required to get them aligned again.
'It's a mirror,' said Irisis. But what is it for?'
'They're not using the An at all' Flydd replied. They simply hit the flying lyrinx with a dazzling beam. Lyrinx have poorer eyesight than we do, and their eyes are sensitive to bright light. They only fight in the middle of the day if they have to. The beam disrupted the An they were using to keep aloft, and they were too close to the ground to recover.'
'They're moving,' said Flangers.
The twelve air-floaters wheeled in perfect formation. The sun flashed off the mirror, the beam lighting up a strip of ground some twenty spans long.
The beam crept across the battlefield, to play on a group of lyrinx attacking a line of soldiers. Irisis focussed on the scene with a spyglass. The lyrinx threw up their arms, trying to shield themselves from the boiling glare, then broke and ran, staggering from side to side. One bold soldier attacked from behind, felling his quarry with a sword thrust between the back plates, but the others escaped.
The beam stepped to another group of lyrinx, who broke like the first. As it tracked across the ground, the mud began to steam gently. The next detachment, some fifty lyrinx, resisted longer than the others, but within a minute they too had fled.
'With a lens, anyone can focus the sun's rays so as to set paper or cloth alight,' said Irisis, 'though I don't think that's their aim here.'
'The beam isn't tightly focussed,' said Flydd, putting down his spyglass, 'but it's enough to dazzle and confuse. And blind too, should you look directly at it.'
The general had a calculating look in his eye. 'Shall I order the counterattack, surr?'
'Wait,' said Flydd. 'If the mirror tears in the wind, or the lyrinx make a determined attack on it, we'll be more exposed than we are now.'
The enemy now attacked desperately, but the beam stopped each onslaught. Within an hour the lyrinx began to fall back en masse, whereupon the beam moved towards the ranks of enemy surrounding the walled perimeter of Snizort.
Suddenly half a dozen lyrinx took to the air, well apart, rising into the path of the air-floaters. This'll be interesting,' said Tham. "They'll never move the mirror quickly enough.'
The air-floaters did not attempt to. The first lyrinx to approach took many crossbow bolts to the head and chest. It tumbled over and over, wings cracking in the wind, before slamming into the ground down the slope behind the command tent. The second suffered a similar fate, for the air-floaters were packed with archers. The other lyrinx flapped away. In the air they were too vulnerable. The mirror beam continued its inexorable progress.
'Something's happening,' said Irisis in the early afternoon. She was watching enemy movements inside the southern wall of Snizort. Lyrinx were running backwards and forwards through the drifting smoke. 'Looks like they're sending out reinforcements.'
'I don't think so,' said the scrutator.
Flangers said quietly, 'They're carrying boxes and bags.'
'Where's my spyglass?' Flydd demanded.
'You left it by the tent,' Irisis replied, passing him her glass. He focussed it and said, 'You've got good eyes, soldier.’
'That's why I was chosen as shooter.'
'What are they doing?' Irisis and Tham asked together.
'A group of .., perhaps one hundred have formed up behind the southern wall,' said Flydd. 'They've all got big packs on, which is unusual, and they're carrying what appear to be boxes, or cases. Or coffins!'
'The same thing happened yesterday morning,' said a sentry standing nearby. 'Even before the node exploded their fliers were heading south-west, carrying huge packages.'
'Is that so?' said Flydd. 'How odd.'
"The tar's burning underground,' said Irisis, 'and it would be the very devil to put out. They'd have to abandon Snizort, whatever the result of the battle.'
'I wonder if those cases contain flesh-formed creatures?' Flydd gave Irisis a keen glance. 'If we could only . . .'
'I hope I'm wrong about what you're thinking' said Irisis.
'Regretfully,' said Flydd, 'you're not. They're weapons we don't know how to deal with, but if we had one or two little ones to study, we might be able to find a defence against them.'
The mirror beam now carved across the eastern wall, towards the enemy ranks on the other side. It was not causing as much confusion as before, but the lyrinx were still retreating from it.
Fighting broke out near the northern wall. A band of some twenty lyrinx had advanced in a rush that took them right through a line of human soldiers. The beam did not shift to counter this new threat, but kept moving back and forth across the ranks of the enemy, on the far side of Snizort.
'That was just a diversion,' cried Irisis. 'They're retreating.'
The group of lyrinx carrying the baggage rose into the air together then spread apart, holding low to the ground until they crossed the southern wall, where there was little fighting. There they climbed rapidly, disappearing into the smoky haze that hung over the fortress.
'They're mighty mancers' said Flydd, 'to fly under these conditions. Whatever they're carrying, it's more important than winning the battle.'
There was no way to bring them down; the lyrinx were out of range of the catapults and javelards, and the fleet of air-floaters did not seem to have noticed. The flying lyrinx reappeared out of the haze, flew into a pall drifting from the molten remains of the node, and vanished.
The scrutator shook his head. 'I think we're going to regret that.'
Two
Inside Snizort, the remaining lyrinx began to swarm over the western and southern walls. Fighting their way through the few human defenders nearby, they headed south-west down the tar-crusted valley. One by one the detachments outside the walls turned to follow them. Those lyrinx not yet called to the orderly retreat fought on.
The air-floaters turned together, drifting closer so as to direct the beam at a skirmish on the northern wall. The lyrinx must have been waiting for that, for three catapults fired at once and their balls of stone went through the mirror sail, tearing gashes which spread until the fabric hung down in tatters. It was released, the shreds winking in the air like tinsel. Each machine produced many smaller mirrors, the size of large shields, which the soldiers aimed individually. The effect was not as dramatic, but the lyrinx still broke when the beams struck them.
Eiryn Muss, Flydd's personal prober, or spy, came up beside him, whispering in his ear. Flydd looked surprised. He whispered back and Muss, an entirely nondescript fellow in his present disguise, slid away.
'What was that about?' said Irisis.
'Scrutators' business,' he "replied tersely.
The air-floaters continued their work for another hour, until, suddenly, it was all over.
'The last of the lyrinx are retreating,' said Flydd. 'We've survived — at least until nightfall.'
'So you think they'll come back?'
'You can't always tell with lyrinx. Since they've had to abandon Snizort, they
may not. But then again, the opportunity to destroy our army in the dark may be too tempting to resist.'
The air-floaters were rotoring towards the command hill, but they did not all make it. A squad of lyrinx catapult operators had remained in position, camouflaged, waiting for just that moment.
A ball went right through the cabin of the lowest air-floater, shattering it into splinters and sending at least a dozen people to their deaths. Another missile struck the ovoid bag of a second machine, deflating it instantly. Fortunately it was, by then, only a few spans above the flank of the hill. The crash made a loud noise, though the machine did not seem to be damaged further. The other ten air-floaters made it to the ground a safe distance from the catapults.
'The lead one's flying the Council flag,' said Flydd, squinting through his spyglass again. I wonder who can be in command? Surely not Ghorr. The chief scrutator would never do anything to risk his mangy hide.'
'We'll soon find out,' said Irisis.
'I'd better go to meet them.'
Again Irisis felt that foreboding. She was following the scrutator when he turned and said, coolly, 'You won't be needed, Crafter. Wait here for my orders. If you would be so good as to ask Fyn-Mah to come down?'
The sudden, cold formality was like a slap in the face. He kept going so she headed back to the tents, found Perquisitor Fyn-Mah and gave her the message, then resumed her pacing around the hill.
Flydd did not hurry, for he also had an uncomfortable premonition. Despite their truly heroic efforts, the mission to destroy the node-drainer had been a failure, doomed before it began. The device the Council had given him had been faulty, perhaps deliberately so. Because of that, a third of the army had been lost. Flydd could not avoid the blame, nor would he, had he been able to. The soldiers lives had been in his hands, and he had failed them. Though inured to war, and hardened by it, every death weighed on him.
But another leader might have won this battle, he thought, despite the loss of the node. Another leader might have seen that the mission to the node-drainer was fatally flawed. Another leader might have done a hundred things to avert this disaster. Having done none of them, he could only feel culpable. If duty required him to pay, he would do so.
Nonetheless, his heart lurched when he saw who was getting out of the air-floater that had crash-landed. A tall, deep chested man, apparenthr in hale middle age, he was broad shouldered, dark haired, full bearded and of noble good looks, except when his smile revealed those vulpine teeth. It was Ghorr, the chief scrutator, and his temper looked fouler than usual. Behind him were ranked the ten other members of the Council of Scrutators, four women and six men. All were bruised, dishevelled and furiously angry.
Though Flydd was still a scrutator, he was no longer on the Council. He ran down to help Ghorr over the side, but the big man smacked his hand away. Blood droplets clustered on his left eyebrow from a gash at his hairline.
'I'm glad you've come,' said Flydd, putting out his hand. 'Your mirror is a fine innovation, though it'll only work once. The next time we meet the enemy they'll have a tactic to neutralise it.'
The chief scrutator ignored the gesture. 'I should never have allowed you back!'
'You should have led by example,' said Flydd, 'and done the job yourself. But that was never your way, was it, Ghorr?'
Ghorr brushed General Tham's hand aside, too, and panted to the top of the hill, where he paused to survey the battlefield. It was a pose, of course — he'd had hours to study the scene from the air-floater.
The other scrutators followed, and not even Flydd's former friend, Halie, the dark little scrutator, had a sympathetic glance for her former colleague. Flydd had expected no less. Though few knew it, the scrutators answered to a higher power — the shadowy Numinator. Someone must take the blame and he was the man responsible.
Ghorr was about to speak when the last of the air-floaters edged up over the hill, to settle directly in front of the command tent. A small man climbed over the side, rather awkwardly, for he had only one arm. Flydd gave an involuntary gasp. If there was one person he had not expected to see, it was this man.
As the air-floater lifted off and headed down the slope, the man turned and the sun caught a gleaming platinum mask that covered the left side of his face. Twin metal bands encircled his head like a helmet, and the hole in the cheek plate of the mask had been repaired. The single eye had the glare of a deranged man.
'You won't get away with it this time, Scrutator Flydd,' said Acting Scrutator Jal-Nish Hlar.
Irisis was catching a moment's rest in the shade behind a tent when Perquisitor Fyn-Mah shook her awake. Fyn-Mah was petite, black of hair and eye, with a stern, frozen beauty that deterred rather than attracted. The perquisitor normally exuded dignity, but now she was flushed as if she had run a long race.
'Get your artisan's pliance and your sword, and follow me, Crafter.'
'I have them,' said Irisis tersely. They did not like each other; moreover, Irisis's sharp tongue had once done Fyn-Mah a wrong and she did not know how to repair it.
'Now!' rapped the perquisitor. 'Scrutator's orders, Crafter.'
Irisis knew better than to question her. A perquisitor, the rank below scrutator, could give orders to the master of a city and expect them to be obeyed without question. Besides, Irisis knew why Flydd wanted her out of the way. Ghorr would not have forgotten her escape from Nennifer, and he still wanted to know how she'd killed Jal-Nish's mancer up on the aqueduct at the manufactory. It was a secret that threatened all mancers.
Fyn-Mah reappeared carrying a small pack and they slipped through the guards and over the edge of the hill into a shrubby gully which ran away from the battlefield. Flangers was standing in the shadows halfway down. He nodded to Fyn-Mah, then fell in beside Irisis.
'What's going on?' she said in a low voice. 'I'm to assist you to the limit of my ability,' he said, which was no help at all.
Fyn-Mah kept to the centre of the gully, where the cover was densest, and after ten minutes they reached the foot of the hill. One of the air-floaters was tethered only a stone's throw away. She headed for it.
'Act as if we own it; Fyn-Mah said over her shoulder. They emerged from the scrub directly behind the machine. Fyn-Mah stood up and rapped on the side. The vessel suspended from the airbag was about eight spans long and three wide, shaped like a round-ended boat, but flimsy, being made from stretched rope, canvas and light framing timbers. The deck was canvas, the sides just rope netting that served to stop people from falling overboard, while a central cabin about four spans by two provided shelter, sleeping space and a tiny separate galley. It was also made of canvas framed with timber, with a light timber door suspended on leather hinges.
The air-floater was a different design to the one Flydd had brought from the east. A ten-bladed rotor, shielded at the front by a wire grid, was mounted on a stanchion at the stern of the craft. The rotor could be swung on a steering arm, making the big machine quite manoeuvrable. The controller was fixed to the steering arm. Above the rotor, mounted on a bracket, sat a complex mechanism in a metal housing, with a small water barrel on top. A pipe ran from the mechanism up to the airbag, and another out to the rear. It appeared to be a device to create floater gas, which, Irisis thought, was a considerable improvement on having to fly all the way to a suitable mine to replenish it.
A soldier, lounging against the rail, let out a squawk. He leapt for his spear, let it fall when he saw the perquisitor's badge, and snapped to attention.
Fyn-Mah climbed through the rope mesh and nodded to the captain of the guard. Irisis and Flangers followed. There were ten soldiers on board, counting the captain of the guard.
'We're going to take a look inside the wall of Snizort,' Fyn-Mah said. 'What's your name, Pilot?'
The pilot was a young woman with hair the bright yellow of a daffodil, freckles all over her thin face, and a charming gap between her front teeth. She was small and slender; all pilots were, for the weight mattered.
'I
nouye, surr' The pilot bowed her head, unwilling to look the perquisitor in the face, but cast a pleading glance sideways at the captain of the guard. A young man with sunburnt cheeks and a thin, pointed nose, he would not look at Fyn-Mah either but inflated his cheeks and frowned. He did not want to deny a perquisitor, but he answered to another master. 'We're ordered to wait here,' he said, studying the canvas floor.
'By whom?'
'Acting Scrutator Jal-Nish Hlar. This is his air-floater.'
'My orders come from Scrutator Xervish Flydd, the com-mander-in-chief of all the forces here.' Fyn-Mah showed him a parchment which contained the scrutator's seal.
The captain gulped, nodded and gave the word to the pilot. Inouye slipped an open helm of crystals and wires over her head, took hold of the controller and screwed up her face as she sought for a distant, usable field. The rotor began to spin. The soldiers cast off the tethers and the air-floater rose out of the grass.
'Stay low,' said Fyn-Mah, checking an instrument concealed in her hand. 'Head that way, keeping just above the enemy's catapult height.' She held out her arm, directing the pilot.
The air-floater rotored gently towards the northern wall of Snizort, crossing over a number of smaller tar seeps where the hard resource had been mined down in benched cones, then a valley that had once been full of the same material. Now only black patches remained, some still smoking, for the lyrinx had fired the tar runs at the beginning of the battle. They saw no sign of the enemy.
'You're taking a risk, aren't you?' Irisis said quietly to Fyn-Mah. They were standing up the front by themselves.
'The scrutator has given me a valid instruction,' the perquisitor said stiffly, then, thawing a little, 'Besides, I am incurably identified with Xervish Flydd. If he falls, so must I.'
'You could change allegiances,' Irisis said slyly, to see how Fyn-Mah would respond.
'Change once and you are forever tainted, your word worthless. I have sworn to my scrutator and will not break my oath, whatever it costs me.'
'There are many who would not be so noble.' She spoke without thinking.